Future Perfect (20 page)

She sits down on the bed and grabs my hand. “Okay, what happened?”

She looks so serious that I want to tell her. I have wanted to tell her that the idea of weight-loss surgery won't go away. That the more it sits with me, the more it seems almost possible. Every moment of this trip, all the way from when she and her brother picked me up on the way to the airport, when I opened the back door of Brandon's car and she twisted around in the passenger seat and said, “Boston! We're going to Boston!” I have wanted to tell her. How terrifying it is, the way bullshit can suddenly sound plausible if you keep turning it over in your head.

But then I'd watch her eyes get huge when she realizes what I'm saying and then watch them narrow as her mouth twists into a knot and then she unleashes all the things I should be saying to myself, every word I should be shouting at myself.

I say, “I don't want to talk about it,” and she huffs at me, kind of the way Soto does when I won't sit down and let her climb into my lap and fall asleep. Laura stands up. I burrow into the blankets and drag them up to my chin.

She says, “I'm going to take a really long hot bath that I might never ever emerge from, and when it is checkout time you will have to come fish a raisin out of the bottom of the tub.”

“I thought you loved the glorious cold, full of clarity and marshmallow candy drops,” I say.

“For a little while,” she says, pulling her sweater over her head and dropping it on the floor. “Everything in moderation, you know. Everything parceled out in neat packages.”

My laugh sounds a little like a shotgun blast and she grins at me and disappears into the bathroom with an armful of pajamas. I feel like I've given up moderation, which is ironic because isn't that what weight-loss surgery is supposed to force you into? Your body scalpeled into pure and perfect medically verifiable control.

Weight-loss surgery.

It's like I've stepped off the top of a cliff and I'm trapped now in the longest empty space between seconds, hanging between immobility and a fall. I don't fall asleep for a long time. The water in the bathroom keeps running, and it's the last thing I hear.

She's up long before me this morning, banging around in the bathroom and leaving the lights on in the closet, and I peer at my phone from under my pillow. It is just seven in the morning and we don't have to check out for five more hours and I am good at math so I put the pillow back on my head and don't realize she's gone until I sit up fast when the alarm on my phone goes off, a
blaring air-raid siren that wakes me up angry every time.

WHERE R U
, I text but she doesn't answer.

LAURA.

WE R LATE WE HAVE 2 GO

My fingers pounding against the screen with audible thumps.
WHERE R U.

AIRPORT,
she texts back. She doesn't answer the phone when I call as I'm stomping through the lobby to the airport shuttle parked outside, my suitcase banging against my knees.

R U KIDDING WHAT IS WRONG W U

She doesn't reply. She's not at security, or the other side of security or the gate, and I keep calling. I go find the security desk to have her paged. I ask the surly woman behind the gate counter if Laura's checked in but they can't give me information about other passengers.

“It's an emergency,” I say.

“I doubt that,” she says, and turns to another passenger, who is yelling about gluten-free food on the plane.

I run back to the security line with no plans in my head—I have to find her, and I'll wander all of Boston and Cambridge and whatever the hell else is in this place until I stumble across her. I have my suitcase wrapped in my arms and I'm dodging slow walkers who pause in front of places called Dunkin Donuts and I'm getting a stitch in my side and my hair is sticking to my forehead and when my phone rings I stumble and drop my
suitcase which explodes open and I trip over it and land on my face on the airport carpet. I'm scrambling for my phone, which has tumbled out of my pocket and the suitcase is broken and my clothes are everywhere, all over the concourse. People stop to help me gather my things but I say, “My phone, I need my phone.” It isn't ringing anymore. I dig through the clothes that people are dropping back into the broken bottom of the suitcase and then it starts ringing again. It's all the way across the hallway and under a chair in a Chili's To Go. I dive for it, stab at the button, and I can hear the shriek in my voice. “Where the hell are you what is going on,” and she says, “Ashley, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, calm down you're going to miss the plane.”

I sit down hard. A Chili's Too patron is sipping his giant margarita through a tiny straw and staring at me through the railing. There is a beer suspended above his glass with a metal contraption and I think about how many things are wrong in the world.

Laura says, “Ashley? Are you there?”

I say, “Where are you?”

She says, “I'm sorry.”

I say, “Where are you?”

“Boston,” she says. “I'm not going home. I'm going to take a bus down to New York and stay with my mom. I'm going to figure out my future. Like I was talking about.”

There is an endless silence while I try to understand what I'm
supposed to feel about that. What I'm supposed to say.

I close my eyes. “Okay,” I finally mumble.

“You're not going to yell at me?” she says.

“You're going to do what you want,” I say. “You don't listen to anyone. You don't have to listen to anyone.”

She's silent for a moment, and I can hear traffic behind her.

“You're not going to tell me
I
don't have to listen to anyone either?” I ask.

“No,” she says. “You know what I think.”

We're quiet again, and I know I am angry, or probably angry, but I'm having trouble feeling it. I'm not sure what this is. I'm picturing her in front of the bus station with her roller bag and her hood pulled up, squinting at the sky with the phone to her ear, and I wish, I wish I were standing there next to her and I can't catch my breath.

This feeling that I have. It feels like good-bye.

That guy's straw makes that bottom-of-the-barrel slurping noise and I stand up.

“Your dad might actually freak out this time,” I say.

Another long silence. “Maybe,” she says. “I kind of hope he will.”

“Laura,” I say.

“Really, though, no one will care.” Now she's cheery. I know it's not real. But then a group of people all wearing the same red T-shirt come barreling down the hallway and my suitcase is
spinning in circles in their wake. It smashes into the wall in front of the restroom.

“Shit!” I yelp.

“What?” Laura says.

“Nothing. Listen, they care,” I say, scrambling through the crowd, snatching my clothes off the carpet. My underwear has scattered in rainbow colors and people are stepping on them. I am hot and breathless and my face is burning red.

“When did you become a liar?” Laura says. Her voice is teasing, but my stomach lurches. And I'm dropping everything as I try to hold the phone to my ear, scoop all my things into the crook of my arm.

“I'm sorry!” I say. “I'm so sorry, I have to go.”

“Fine,” she says. “And hey. Figure out your shit, Ashley, okay? Don't make stupid mistakes. Nothing will get easier. And nothing will be better. Don't change your mind. Don't take your grandmother up on this.”

Her words are fierce but her voice is even. Kind. That must be why it feels like a dam has broken and I am being flooded. Crying. She knows. And then she's gone. I push my phone into the pocket of my coat and rub the tears off my cheeks and gather armfuls of clothes and stuff them back into the suitcase. I'm sure I'm missing half my things but I don't care because my flight is boarding. I scoop up the broken pieces of my suitcase, turn and trip over my suit jacket, kick it out of my way, and start running.

I
know Laura hasn't called her family because Brandon is calling me as soon as I turn my phone back on when I'm finally outside in the smothering hot and humid air.

“Hey, Laura isn't picking up,” he says easily. “Sorry. I'm in the cell-phone lot. Tell me where to come get you.”

“Sure, okay,” I say, and tell him the gate number and hang up before I have to say anything else. There are no messages from anyone and I don't bother to call or text Laura. She wouldn't have thought to tell her family before I got home. She is probably wandering barefoot through the snow and making friends with jackrabbits or homeless people on the bus.

Brandon pulls up smoothly behind an SUV that's crawling with screaming children in cargo shorts and light-up flip-flops and two moms who are bickering about who spilled the orange juice, and who would give orange juice at this time of the day to a kid, do you know how much sugar is in it, and why don't we
have any more napkins. I jump into Brandon's front seat with my suitcase in my lap and he peers past me.

“Where's Laura?” he says, and his brow furrows are so cute a whole family of bunnies should live in them. His eyes are bright, puzzled.

“She—she went to stay with your mom,” I say, instead of all the sarcastic things I want to say. Brandon sometimes struggles with sarcasm.

“Whoa,” he says. “Seriously?”

“When do I lie, Brandon?” I snap.

He lifts his hands from the steering wheel. “Sure, okay,” he says. He shifts and we pull out into the traffic circling the passenger pickup. “Is she okay?” he asks.

It takes me a minute to answer. “I think so,” I say. “Is your dad going to lose his mind?”

He glances over at me as he takes the right turn out on to the main strip. “He trusts us,” he says.

“That's not what Laura says.”

He shrugs. “It doesn't matter what my father does. Laura will do what she wants anyway.”

I stare out the window with my phone in my hand, wondering again if I should text Laura, as we turn onto the 101. Everything is green and recognizable, unobscured and snow free, which I realize is a relief. Watching the trees pass on either side is like taking a long drink of cool water. We're quiet for a long time.

At Lancaster Brandon says, “So is she running away?” He glances over at me and I meet his eyes. He looks miserable and I want to reach out and put my hand on his shoulder, on his knee. I keep my hands folded on top of the suitcase.

“No,” I say. “I don't think so. She seemed excited.”

“Yeah,” he says. Then, “She didn't tell me. She didn't even warn me. I wish she had told me. She tells me everything.” He's chewing on his bottom lip.

“I know,” I say. “I think she just kind of came up with the plan at the last minute.”

“She's not a long-term planner,” he says.

“I like that about her,” I say.

He glances over, surprised.

“I mean, it drives me crazy sometimes.” I run my hands over the embossed surface of my broken luggage. “I worry about her,” I say.

“She thinks you're the only one who does.” He's drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, his face serious.

“She—I don't know if she knows exactly what she's doing. But I think she knows what she wants.” And then, something clicks into place in my brain. “She feels like she has to pretend to be brave. Except she really is. Brave.”

I can't look at him to see how he's reacting.

“You're pretty brave too,” he says.

“I'm really not,” I say. I know that's not a lie. I know I always
thought I was, though.

It is strange to be sitting there in the car with him, so close. Knowing each other our whole lives. Knowing he doesn't actually know me at all.

“I'm sorry I found out accidentally about—”

“I don't want to talk about it,” I interrupt him.

A long uncomfortable silence as the trees flash past. I flip my phone in my hands.

“So,” he says, bobbing his head like he's listening to music. “How are you?”

How have I never noticed how twitchy he is? I think of all the things I could tell him. “I think my interview went well,” I say.

“Oh great,” he says, glancing over at me again. “High five!” He lifts his hand up off the steering wheel.

“Don't high-five, Brandon,” I say, and he laughs.

“How are
you
?” I ask, and brace myself for anecdotes of dating bliss with—

“I broke up with Morgan,” he says, and that is not what I had been braced for.

“What?” I say. I study the profile I'm so familiar with, the cheekbones and the slope of his nose and the square chin that I've so often thought I want to gently bite.

He doesn't look over at me. “She was pissed I wouldn't tell her what was going on with you,” he says.

“What's going on with me?” I say stupidly.

“The note. I, uh, mentioned that I found it, and she wanted to know what was in it, and I wouldn't tell her, and she told me I was always choosing you over her and
blah blah blah
, and we broke up.” He pauses. “I wasn't going to satisfy her curiosity because it wasn't her business.”

I say, “Okay.”

“Yeah,” he says. He sneaks a peek at my face.

“I'm not going to thank you for doing a basic decent thing,” I say.

“That's not why I did it!”

“Then why would you tell me?”

He sighs. “Listen, I know you're going through a lot of—” he says, and pauses. I can see him thinking
big
and
heavy
and discarding each of them in turn. He settles on saying, “Stuff, you know? And I thought you could stand to know that you have a friend. Who's known you forever. And has your back. I've been thinking about you a lot. I'm proud of you.”

“Oh,” I say. “Well. Okay.”

He shrugs, the one-shoulder shrug that reminds me so much of Laura I have to look away and stare at the trees racing by until I can talk again.

“I hope you're okay with the breakup,” I say.

“It was a long time coming,” he said. “She says stuff. You know. Sometimes I think she's not a great person.”

“Usually I think that,” I blurt without meaning to, and he laughs.

“She's not as good as you are,” he says with a whole lot of gravity, and I cringe.

I say, “She's still pissed she's just salutatorian. And I have better hair.”

He laughs again. “You're funny,” he says.

“Sometimes,” I say.

“Do you want to stop and get food or something?” he says. “I'm starving.”

I nod, and then say yes when I realize he's not looking at me. “Sure,” I say. I should eat. And I am wondering what he'll look like when he looks at me directly.

“Okay, sure. There's a place right here, actually. This is good.”

We pull off at the next exit and bump along side roads until we find a shack called Burgers, with benches set up in front. No one else is here and the kid behind the counter has his chin in his hand, swiping idly at his phone.

I look around at the rotted wood and the scrub brush and the size of the kitchen.

“We are going to die of E. coli poisoning,” I say, and he laughs at that too.

He's out the car door and ordering before I have my seat belt off, and then he sits on one of the long benches.

“Why aren't there any tables?” I ask him.

“I think you're supposed to eat in your car,” he says.

“Tables are probably also expensive,” I say. He laughs and I say, “No, seriously.”

“Oh,” he says. “Okay.”

The road is empty and we are surrounded by trees and the tick of Brandon's engine cooling and the sizzling of the burgers in the shack. He reaches over after a few minutes and takes my hand. I look at him, and then his hand is wrapped around mine. My skin is almost as dark as his.

“What?” I say.

“You're pretty great,” he says, and glances at me. I wish he'd just keep looking at me so I could figure out what he really meant. He says, “I've always known that. But lately, like I said, I've just been thinking about you. Not just about you—but about
you.
”

“What?”

“You know. Who you are. How beautiful you really are. How beautiful you can be.”

Oh,
I think.

“I thought we didn't have any chemistry,” I say.

“We have tons. Don't you think so?”

“That's not what you said.”

“When?” he says. “I can't believe I'd say that.” He runs his thumb across the side of my wrist and it feels nice but it should be thrilling me and it isn't. “It's so clear.”

“I don't know anymore,” I say, and he leans over and kisses
me. His mouth is soft and he smells like saltwater taffy. He puts his hand on my waist, and I stiffen. He runs it down my side and leaves it on my thigh. I don't close my eyes. I have both hands clenched around the bench and I hear the sound of a spatula clanking against the fryer inside. I'm waiting for the fireworks.

He pulls back and looks at me with half-closed eyes. His thumb rubs along the side of my thigh. And it's just a hand on my thigh, not a burning, tingling, maddening sensation like poison ivy of the loins, the way I expected it to be.

I look at him, and it's not the way I expected it to be at all.

I say, “Do you think my weight has been holding me back?” He looks startled, straightens up like he's been poked between the shoulder blades. His hand drops from my thigh.

“Uh,” he says. “Well, no. You're so smart—”

I interrupt him. “Has it been holding you back? From dating me, I mean.”

Now he's scrambling, his eyes wide. “What? No! I mean, not exactly. Of course not. I mean, you have such a pretty face. Beautiful,” he amends, his voice softening. He leans forward like he's going to kiss me again.

I start to laugh. I say, “I'm glad you think so.” Suddenly I am giddy.

He jerks back. “What's funny?” Now he's confused. He is still so beautiful, perfect round face and olive eyes and that mouth that was just on mine. But I'm seeing so much more than that.
There's just a tiny bit of clarity, the sun through the clouds. I know what I want for the first time in a long time.

Not him. Not an imaginary future. Not weight-loss surgery.

“I'm going to check on our burgers,” I say. I can feel myself grinning like a maniac. I pat his knee.

He jumps up. “I'll check on them,” he says. “I'll pay.” He is nervous, uncertain. I've never seen him so off balance.

I pull a five out of my jeans pocket. “No, here. Take it.” I tuck it into his hand and stand up. “I'm going to go look at—” I gesture over at a pile of rusting farm equipment with hand-lettered signs propped up against it, sitting in the middle of the weeds and scrub grass and gravel. “That.” I can't stop smiling.

“Okay,” he says. He still looks confused and seems lost and I am sorry, just a little bit sorry, that I can't take him seriously. That I can't explain what he's just given me, because he'd never understand.

Brandon hands me a paper bag a few minutes later. Back in the car, I am warm from the sun on my neck, and a little sleepy. He makes small talk, and I murmur agreement in return. I pull french fries out of my bag one by one slowly. He leaves his bag on the console between us. Finally he stops trying to make any more conversation. He plugs in his phone and tunes in an ambient station and the synthesizers carry us all the way back home.